


Jayne’s Day

by OneBadRat



Category: Firefly
Genre: Blood, Cussing in Mandarin, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Indentured Servitude, Rioting, strong violence implied but not described
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-04
Updated: 2013-09-04
Packaged: 2017-12-25 13:50:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/953842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneBadRat/pseuds/OneBadRat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Serenity. Riot time hits Higgins’ Moon again, and this time the Higgins family don't fare well. Luckily, the spirit of Jayne Cobb's story wasn't completely destroyed. Featuring an original character called Mahdi. Mentions Miranda and Shadow</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jayne’s Day

**Author's Note:**

> The original version was a lot shorter, written for a Slayalive Writers' challenge #6 “OC/Outsider Perspective”, it was rewritten in 2011 but I only just thought to archive it here. I imagine Mahdi to look like a Firefly'd version of indie-soul-rocker, 'Res'.

“Ah know y’all feel like we was disrespected but please in the name’a Buddah, stop the violence! Wuh de tyen, ah! This ain’t no way t’act! What would Jayne do?!”

Sheppard Tang’s words fell on deaf ears. Looters were pushing past, away from the carnage of Magistrate Higgins’ mansion and down the ornate stone steps carrying armfuls of plunder. Behind the hysterical preacher, flames burned as hot as Mudders’ anger, filling the sky with acrid smoke.

The first time Higgins had rolled in and threatened to take down the town’s statue of Jayne Cobb, the entire factory town rioted. Months later, meeting their lacklustre hero in person dented their resilience but the ideal somehow survived its sordid origin. The statue was resurrected, bullet holes and blood stains carefully daubed over with fresh mud and once again, through all their troubles, the Mudders found solace at their idol’s feet, in the scent of incense and the light of candles.

This year’s desecration was the final straw. A drunken foreman, a foggy night and a truck with bad brakes… they woke to find their beloved altar reduced to rubble. The second riot became a revolt, the revolt became anarchy. The Alliance dismissed it as a ‘private workforce dispute’, they were suddenly busy handling hundreds of Anti-Pax protests on a half-dozen nearby planets.

“Words won’t do no good now, Sheppard.” a rich, velvety voice beside him pronounced. “Folks’re already mad about Miranda, bad luck just pushed ‘em too far this time.”

He turned to find the voice’s owner was a dark, stocky figure in a ragged dress, duct-taped boots, a mess of dreadlocks peeking from a straw coolie hat. Amid the chaos she was the only other person not raiding the building or assaulting the ‘prods’; but her clothes were smeared with soot and blood. She turned and Tang recognised the face under the headgear.

“Mahdi? Don’t tell me you’re a part’a this insanity…”

“Not hardly” she scoffed. “Y’know some gou shi buru killed the Koi in the lilly pond? Wh’did the fish ever do?”

“Town’s actin’ like Reavers, Buddah help us all. Go on, get outta here, girl. It ain’t safe with these lunatics runnin’ 'round!”

“Oh, don’chu worry about me.” A smile crept onto the woman’s face that the preacher could only describe as dangerous. “Got m'self a shooter from the boss’s private cache.”

Something exploded at the back of the building. Mahdi marched down the mansion steps clearly looking like she was about to murder someone. It fitted the brutal performance going on around her, but the former Browncoat had nobler intentions.

“Jun ta ma yao ming!” Tang yelled after her. “It’s a madhouse back there, girl!”

A looter at the mansion had mentioned a lynch mob on the edge of the town bog; they were going to feed the entire Higgins family down its slimy brown gullet, in bite-size chunks. The thought of this bothered Mahdi somewhat.

*

Before the war, Canton's smartest Mudder had been a student of pharmacology from Shadow. She worked her whole life to rise above the usual expectations of a superstitious farmhand's daughter. The most promising student in her class, she powered her way though an accelerated undergraduate program and was nearly two years into her medical degree when war broke out. Her life fell apart when the Alliance decided to streamline their outreach scholarships, one of many tactics for diverting cash to the war effort. Suddenly Mahdi Goza found herself stuck on Ariel, lightyears from home with mounting debts and no income. She eventually managed to barter passage back to Shadow, only to find her family dead and the prairies of her childhood reduced to blackened rock. Shadow was one of the first worlds to stand up for Independence. Virtually everyone fit enough had volunteered to fight with the Browncoats so the Alliance Purplebellies made an example of them.

Mahdi signed up as a field medic but the Independents were the losing side, and when all was said and done, the Browncoat Scrips she'd been paid in were less than worthless. Better yet, an arrest warrant was issued accusing Mahdi of 'debt evasion' during the war. Magistrate Higgins paid off her debts, bribed the lawmen to let her be, and all he wanted in return was a few years service at Canton. It was the shortest end of the stick ever offered a human soul, but she took it. In hindsight, Mahdi realised she would have gotten a fairer deal in prison.

Over the years that followed Mahdi had done the best a genius reduced to mud factory fodder could hope for. The makeshift surgery she ran at the Canton Inn was the closest thing the workers got to a medical plan, in between furnace shifts. It let her feel useful. And occasional garden duty on the Higgins estate was actually relaxing. That was where she met the Magistrate's son, Fess. He'd seemed nervous the first time they spoke, but when the pair got chattering about Jayne Cobb ("He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" in the Higgins household) it was the first time he didn’t look lonely; and it was the only time Mahdi reverted from a pit-bull to being a girl again.

***

_“What's up, Mahdi?”_

_“Ain't nuthin' up but the sky, boy.”_

_“Boy?” Fess' features creased. Every other servant called him "sir" but Mahdi addressed him by his given name or not at all. It was one of the things he liked about her. “You're only a year older than me. Aren't you?”_

_“An' seen twice as much life fer it.” Mahdi resumed angrily snapping away stray shoots on a large ornamental bonsai, shears snip-snip-snipping like an off-kilter metronome. “Heard you got y'self a fancy-frou-frou companion.”_

_“My father arranged it. She was, I mean, um...” Fess mistook his friend's odd, clipped tone, never once suspecting it had anything to do with jealousy. There was a reason he didn't do so well with girls. “The Companions aren't like factory servants.” He ventured. “I wouldn't have... not if she... They only take work offers if they want to, not because they have to.”_

_“Nice work if you can get it.”_

_“Maybe. She was here with the same ship that brought Jayne you know. That's why he showed up!”_

_The snip-snip-snipping suddenly stopped._

_“That was you helped 'em get back out ta the black, weren't it?” A sneaky little smile slowly lit up her features. “Tell me what yo' daddy's face looked like when he found out. I wanna know every little detail!”_

_Fess couldn't help but smile back at her._

***

Some of the Mudders called Mahdi 'Sawbones', a name that was part endearment and part resentment for the lack of anesthetic available. The most grateful talked about the former Browncoat in a tone usually reserved for the Hero of Canton himself. Of course, Mahdi knew now that Jayne was no hero, he hadn't intentionally dropped a box of Magistrate money in the Mudders' laps. But the comparison didn't loose it's shine after the truth came out. She liked how cut-throat the real Jayne was, he looked like he didn't take pi hua from anyone.

Now the whole town was rioting over a fallen idol, so maybe Canton just needed a new hero.

*

A single gunshot from the back of the crowd cleared a path to the bog's edge. It was a practice common with the foremen and the Mudders’ instinct was to scatter. Gratton, an indentured kitchen-hand, had clearly nominated himself as ringleader and was all set to bring a meat cleaver down on Fess Higgins’ left wrist.

Fess was turned away from the arm being forced out, eyes scrunched shut. He looked different without his glasses; younger. Madame Higgins was kneeling beside him, curled inside her taupe kimono like a terrified snail. Since Gratton was wearing a blood-spattered magistrate’s robe, Mahdi guessed she was too late for the Higgins patriarch.

She stepped warily through the crowd, stolen shotgun aimed directly at Gratton’s head. “You’ve had yo fun, boys,” She scowled. “But I think you’d best drop the sharp an’ git!”

“Sawbones?” he scoffed. The nickname had never sounded more like an insult. “I always knew you were soft on this pup.”

“Soft ain’t nothin’ t’do with it. Back off or I come down on you like a ton o’bricks.”

"Shénme?" Gratton almost laughed. "Cole, Emmett, put this cho yade in her place!"

Nobody moved. The crowd grew quiet.

"She saved mah wife's arm last winter, Grat..."

"And remember when she got mah boy that Buterol spacer?"

The kitchen-hand's smirk vanished, realising nobody wanted to lift a finger. She was a smart-aleck but Mahdi had been more than accommodating to those in need. He turned back to the browncoat, who twitched the gun in a 'hurry-up' gesture. “Pofù, you wouldn’t dare!”

“S’funny you say that…” and the smile that had disturbed Sheppard Tang resurfaced on Mahdi’s face. “Reason ah’m here is cus I asked mahself one simple question: What would Jayne do?”

The continued silence of the crowd spoke volumes. Many had seen Jayne Cobb beat a so-called friend’s head into the ground with his bare hands, those who hadn’t, they got the blow by blow account soon enough. Deep down, no matter how much they wanted to imagine otherwise, everyone knew the real Jayne would pull the trigger and take Gratton’s head clean off. If Mahdi wanted to do the same, nobody would stop her.

The cleaver blade bit into the ground at Mahdi’s feet, almost claiming a toe.

“Fess?” Mahdi beckoned, gun barrel still pointed squarely at the butcher behind him.

Fess looked up at her the way little children used to stare up at the statue in the town square. But then he reached out for her hand, and like the shortest end of the stick ever offered a human soul, he took it. And it was something.


End file.
